The Rings of Power Episodes Ranked From Worst to Best

The first full season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has finally come to a close and with it eight new hours of storytelling in Middle-earth. While the wait for the next batch of episodes has begun, and it could be a long one, the fallout of what we’ve just watched unfold is already occupying the fandom. That in mind we’ve got a collective ranking of the show’s first season and ranked all eight episodes. 

It’s worth reiterating, despite what you might have heard from the dark side of the internet, that there weren’t actually any bad episodes of The Rings of Power, but there were ones that just happened to be clearly better than others and some that couldn’t quite hit that mark. Check out our ranking below and let us know what you think were the best and worst episodes!

#8 – Episode 4: “The Great Wave”

Episode 4 gives us some devious dwarf action, plus the start of Durin and Elrond’s talks about Mithril, which will become a major point in the series overall. Arondir and Adar getting to chew the scenery together does also make for a fun watch; however, the inner politics of Númenor and the people that embody it might be important in the big picture, but that doesn’t make them very interesting on the whole.

#7 – Episode 5: “Partings”

Even more of Númenor still doesn’t make Númenoranymore interesting, especially when characters that haven’t up to this point done much of anything suddenly command the screen for their very own scenes. This episode is also very proud of the many shots it has of people wearing fancy armor for the first time and the many steps that they take on a boat ahead of the next episode; and sure, they DO look good, but it’s storytelling time that is spent focusing on the aesthetics of the scene and the characters for just a hair too long.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t note its best scene however, Galadriel revealing to Halbrand the circumstances of her brother’s death and how it has been her driving force for centuries, that rules.

#6 – Episode 3: “Adar”

After the one-two punch of the first episodes in the series, “Adar” does leave a bit to be desired by way of how it has trouble balancing these new stories that audiences are invested in and spend a lot of its real estate on Númenorand its inhabitants. Naturally this is a huge piece of Tolkien lore that the series would need to expand on but sadly the introduction of this place (amazing as it looks) and the characters (grow on you as they do) is sometimes a drag, especially the attempt at making Isildur seem like he’s not going to do things that we know he’s definitely going to do. It’s a necessary stepping stone in the series, especially with its big finale, but it’s not the show at its best.

#5 – Episode 2: “Adrift”

“Adrift” gives us the introduction of the Dwarves and the arrival of Durin as “best character in the whole dang show.” The Dwarves make The Rings of Power different from every other fantasy series and when they’re not in the series we should all be asked where the dwarves are. We also get to see the Harfoots in a state that’s as close to Hobbits as we’re going to get for a bit while they deal with the literal fallout of The Stranger’s arrival. A large chunk of the series is spent with Galadriel on the Sundering Seas, sailing adrift with new character Halbrand. The sequence with the monster is fun but on the whole there’s not a lot that makes it feel notable since it’s just watching the movements from point A to B.

#4 – Episode 1: “A Shadow of the Past”

The solid opening, which harkens to the opening of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring in more ways than one, earns The Rings of Power a lot of good will even if it’s speeding through a thousand years of history at a rapid pace. Even the first extended scene with Galadriel and her company is the kind of sequence that telegraphs the intentions of The Rings of Power as a series, that’s a scene that could have been the thesis for an entire show on its own, but this is bigger than that, and every dollar Amazon spent is being shown off in a big way in this episode. It was worth every penny.

“A Shadow of the Past” also makes sure to remind us that even when it’s not focusing on character we’ve seen in movies or read in books for years that this world alone gives them a compelling place to dwell as characters. The extended scene that showcases elf-warrior Arondir and his human love Bronwyn in The Southlands makes for fascinating storytelling, and an amazing hook into the rest of the show. Plus the ending with the arrival of The Stranger? That’s peak TV.

#3 – Episode 8: “Alloyed”

For the most part, the season one finale of The Rings of Power is incredibly satisfying. Even if there aren’t a lot of surprises within its narrative beats, the seeds have been planted in such a way that everything we see happen plays to the exact right note. It has everything, humor, action, heart break, and naturally, rings of power. There’s some things that don’t quite add up in the last episode (How would Celebrimbor really not know about mixing ores? How are the people from Rhûn THIS wrong?) and which keep it form being perfect; but it’s a great button for the show to conclude on and gives us enough story to keep us wondering until season two.

#2 – Episode 7: “The Eye”

While the build up to episode six really catapulted that one to the top of the rankings, the aftermath of the event is just as interesting to watch unfold. Not only is the immediate fall out of Mount Doom’s explosion something that requires a lot of narrative weight, and potential despair considering the implied deaths, but the scattering of the main characters that all just got together puts Episode 7 in a unique position as characters who previously hadn’t had a lot of time side by side are given just that. As usual Morfydd Clark gets one of the best lines in the episode, an all-timer for the series, “It darkens the heart to call dark deeds good.”

#1 – Episode 6: “Udûn”

Though one shouldn’t necessarily consider the level of action that a Lord of the Rings story has as the be-all, end-all metrics for its quality, the huge battle within “Udûn” is just one part of what made it such a compelling (and the best) episode of the entire season.  In short the episode has everything, twists, turns, escalating action, expected character beats that are still satisfying, and naturally multiple plot threads finally getting tied together. We also have to account for the fact that the build up to all of this made the payoff even sweeter, especially with its huge curtain drop after Mount Doom explodes in the final minute.